


After Lawson

by Maddalia



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-08 04:16:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maddalia/pseuds/Maddalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A coda to <i>Lawson's Last Stand.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	After Lawson

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Discovered in the Style Of" challenge at _DIALJ._

The plan to stop Lawson is laid, and one look between Bodie and Doyle affirms it. That's it, then. The blind spot. One chance. It always seems to come down to just one chance ...

 _Is that true?_ Bodie doesn't know. He can't remember any of his past ops just now. There might as well be no past at all. There might not be any future, either.

Doyle looks at Cowley. 'Sir?'

A pause, as the old man considers. Then: 'Do it.'

Cowley walks away, leaving Bodie and Doyle alone, and they're speaking with their eyes again, sharing the creeping terror, the crushing responsibility that has fallen upon them because it's their job. It's not like a firefight. This is premeditated. Too much time to think about what could go wrong. Bodie has to say something aloud. Anything. But everything he _wants_ to say can never be said at times like these. It's ironic, all the things he wants to tell his partner, yet whenever there's leisure for pretty speeches, they stick in his throat.

Say _something._

'Listen, mate, when I come out that blind spot, you give it all you've got.'

Doyle nods as Bodie speaks, eyes straying quickly away. The state he's in, he wouldn't hear the sublimest of poetry, let alone anything Bodie could find to say. A protrusion of pink tongue passes over a lip Bodie knows is smooth and soft, framing a mouth whose tastes and textures he knows better than his own.

 _Christ, what do you_ say _in situations like this? 'It's been an honour to have served with you?'_ That doesn't even _begin_ to cover it. So Bodie says nothing else. He walks in one direction and Doyle in another, each man preparing for his role. Doyle's briefing the tank driver. Bodie's organising a spike to mark the starting point of his run. There's a tracksuit in the back of one of the jeeps. Not the clothes he'd choose to die in. If Doyle goes out today there'll be a beautiful corpse. Good hair today; it makes his cheekbones look like they could cut steel. And that jacket with those jeans -- his shoulders look a little broader, his waist and hips a little slimmer, his legs a little longer. His arse was perfect to start with.

 _I might never ..._ Bodie thinks, as he changes.

Ray.

_Jesus, I don't want to die._

'In your own time, 3.7.' Cowley, via R/T, as Bodie laces up his trainers. 'We're with you all the way.'

_Fuck. That's what I should have said. Why didn't I think to say that?_

'OK, I'm on my way.'

Doyle's standing on the side of the tank, facing Lawson. A group of men in NBC suits move slowly forward. Bodie sees the twitch of Lawson's head as they come into his sights, visible through one of the mirrors he's got surrounding him.

_Clever bastard thinks of everything. Except ..._

He steps over the spike. Crouches. Narrowly avoids sitting on the spike. That'd give the doctors and nurses a good laugh. No time to think about that now. It's time. Bodie can feel his own heart beating. Adrenaline courses through him. Clarity. This is it: moments like these are what men like him live for. 

 _We're with you all the way._ It's going to be all right.

'Right, I'm gonna go on three, OK?' he says into the R/T. 'One ... two ... _three!'_

There is no world but that stretch of ground, that man with the canister, the smell of the grass as his feet pound it flat, and the man nearby in the light brown jacket who is Bodie's reason for living, and the reason why he will not die today.

Another twitch from Lawson as Bodie comes out of the blind spot. The firing of a gun. The twin thuds as Lawson, then the canister, tumble to the ground. And Bodie's moves are seamless like a dance, flowing like the air, as he snatches up his burden and lobs it across twenty feet to where Doyle and the tank are waiting. Despite Doyle's fears, he catches it. The canister lands in the tank. Doyle jumps to the ground as Bodie throws himself down. Close to each other, yet much, much too far, they lie with their flesh against the earth, and for four seconds of forever, they wait.

One dull thump, and it's over. Then they get to their feet, walking towards Lawson's prostrate form, and Cowley, who's bending over him. There's another thump: Doyle's fist against Bodie's shoulder. Bodie understands everything it says, and he chuckles, warmed by it, and by the open admiration and relief on his partner's face, and the feeling of _we did it!_

Men are crowding around the tank, spraying it with foam, spurts of white, and Bodie wants Doyle.

'Yeah, that's alright,' he says lamely, because it is, and what else is there to say? Cowley straightens up from examining Lawson, tells them he's dead. Another threat lies dead on the ground because Bodie and Doyle were willing to die for their cause -- as Lawson died for his.

'You're out of breath, 3.7.'

Bodie knows Cowley's half-joking. But he also knows he's half- _not_ joking, and the words sting. _Is that all you can say?_

'Yes, sir. Soft, you might say.'

That's it. No more. Time to go home. The old man can crawl up his own arse for all Bodie cares. He walks away with long, smooth strides, looks back once. Is Doyle following? Yes. Does he know what's going to happen? Yes. That little smile says it all. Who'll take who? Not even Bodie knows that. Nor does he particularly care. He just wants them to touch.

They reach Bodie's car and get in together. The doors click shut in unison. The inside of the car is a haven, dulling the sounds of what's happening outside.

'What about your clothes?' Doyle asks, as Bodie starts up the engine.

'Someone'll take them back to HQ.'

'I s'pose they will ... Bodie?'

'What?' Bodie puts the car into gear and they speed away, tyres squealing.

'You alright?'

'When we get home I will be,' he mutters. Glancing across at his partner, he sees that enigmatic little smile again.

'Yeah,' Doyle says softly. He reaches over, brazenly squeezing Bodie's crotch. 'You're gonna be fine.'

Bodie draws in his breath loudly, and thinks: _More._ One hand leaves the wheel and grasps Doyle's. Their fingers entwine, and neither lets go until Bodie stops the car outside his building.

'Inside.'

'Don't have to tell me, Bodie.'

'I know.'

'Lift working?'

'Far as I know.'

'Good, in that case, _inside._ '

Bodie finds himself being shoved unceremoniously into the lift when its doors open, and he doesn't mind a bit. Nor does he mind when he is pushed against the wall and very thoroughly kissed. What he doesn't expect is the degree of feeling that takes him over at the touch of his partner's lips. His arms go around him, pressing their bodies close, two nudging hardnesses starting to swell down below, two pairs of eyes closed in pleasure, then looking at each other, speaking that sublime poetry that Bodie wishes he could write. 

When Doyle releases him, he groans. 'Oh God, Ray.' He takes Doyle's face in both hands, runs his thumbs over the mismatched cheekbones. 'Ray, don't ...'

'Don't what?' Doyle sounds concerned.

'God, I don't know.' He buries his face in Doyle's neck, but Doyle can't comfort him, because the bell of the lift has sounded, and the doors are opening. Propriety forces them apart, but Bodie can't resist laying his right hand between Doyle's shoulder blades as they walk to the door of his flat. His left hand is busy with the key while the other remains anchored to the only reality that matters.

Then they're inside, the door has slammed behind them, and they're alone. Bodie covers Doyle's body with his, pushes him into the wall, kisses him with lips that will bruise as surely as they caress, tongue delving deep into his mouth, tasting him like he's never tasted him before, or ever will again. He pulls away, finally, because he has to breathe, and the air enters him in a choked gasp.

'You're so bloody gorgeous.' He's wanted to say that all day.

Doyle chuckles, and pulls him into a clinging embrace, kissing the side of his face.

'So're you. I love a man in a tracksuit.'

Bodie snorts with laughter.

'Nah, straight up, mate. Honest.' Another kiss, this time on his temple, then another, on his hair. 'Having said that though, I love you in anything ... or nothing.' He leaves just enough of a pause between his words to make Bodie's cock sit up and take notice, just as his heart throbs and his breath catches and everything rushes upon him at once.

'Ray ...'

Again, he holds Doyle's face, again, he kisses him hard and long.

'Beautiful,' Doyle gasps.

'So're you.' Bodie smiles a little as he echoes his partner's earlier words. Their breathing comes faster, deeper, as they grind against each other, locked in each other's arms. 'God, Ray, I'm gonna make it so good for you. Gonna fuck you hard, make you scream ... you'll come so hard for me ... for us ... just want to be with you, that's all I want, d'you understand me?'

'Bodie ... need you ...'

Doyle's fumbling with his belt buckle. Bodie fumbles with his. Between them they manage to strip each other from the waist, constantly kissing, breathing hard into each other's mouths, then forgetting to breathe altogether as the kiss deepens, and two bare, hard lengths collide with each other. Then Doyle kneels in front of him, sucking him, moistening him, and Bodie's slicking his fingers in his own mouth. In another minute the preparations are made, Doyle on his feet, turning into the wall, bracing himself with his hands, and Bodie is pressing into him, agonisingly, exquisitely slow ...

And then the whispers are barely even words, or Bodie's too far gone to know what he's saying, and way past the point where it matters. He is floating above the room, above England, above the whole world, because he and Doyle are a universe all on their own. One long, shuddering cry from his partner, the convulsing of the velvet heat surrounding him, Doyle's seed spilling over his fingers, and the universe explodes behind Bodie's eyes, christened _Ray_ in its death-knell, and he slips back to inhabit his own earth, where he and his love have exorcised Hell.

\- _fin_ -


End file.
